Army Base Shooting Suspect in Custody, Condition Unknown

The Fort Lee, Virginia Army base shooting Monday morning ended with the soldier shooting herself in the head. Nobody else was wounded, according to Reuters. The woman’s identity and condition still had not been released as of late Monday afternoon, but she was likely being treated at Virginia Commonwealth Medical Center.

Before the shooting on the base, she reportedly barricaded herself in an office on the Army base and went on a “rampage” and threw things in an office, Maj. Gen. Stephen Lyons told reporters for ABC affiliate WJLA-TV. The rampage and subsequent shooting happened as officials were trying to negotiate with her.

The shooting did not result in the injury of any other soldiers on the Army base, according to an earlier report from The Inquisitr. The Army did say that the shooter was a Sergeant 1st Class and had done one 15-month tour of duty in Iraq in 2007, but didn’t tell reporters whether she had a history of mental health problems. Because she shot herself in the head while police were negotiating with her, she didn’t injure others. Her motive for the shooting is unknown.

The weapon used in the base shooting was a pistol, and “active shooter” protocols were activated to keep base staff on lockdown for safety. The base, through its official Twitter account, notified the public of the status.

Fort Lee Army base is about 30 minutes south of Richmond, Virginia, and about 130 miles from Washington, D.C. It is the third-largest training site for the Army and there are more than 34,000 service members, civilians, and contractors there.

The shooting at Fort Lee follows a similar, more deadly incident on an Army base. In April, a disturbed soldier killed three people and wounded 16 others in a shooting at Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, Texas. At the time, it was the third shooting rampage on an Army base in just six months. A shooting at Fort Hood in 2009 was the deadliest in history. More than 30 people were wounded and 13 others were killed in that shooting by Army soldier Nidal Malik Hasan.

“We are sad for our soldier in arms that she faced those kinds of challenges that she thought she had to resort to those kind of actions,” Major General Stephen Lyons, the base commander, said at a televised news conference.

The base stayed locked down for less than one hour during the shooting. A base gate to the building where the Army base shooting happened stayed closed, as well as nearby streets.